


these places will have to substitute

by hoars



Series: Strangeness and Charm [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 1880s, Alternate Universe, England - Freeform, Gypsy AU, Interlude, Jealousy, Laura's POV, M/M, Magic, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:49:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoars/pseuds/hoars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Interlude) “The chovihano is harmless to Derek.” Mother says.</p>
<p>“I assure you, Miss Laura, Stiles would not hurt Derek.” The shaman says. “Stiles cares greatly for your brother.”</p>
<p> But still. Something in her is screaming, howling and growling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these places will have to substitute

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Roger Bonair-Agard's "Your Bed is Too Small for Fucking and Poetry."

Laura doesn’t quite know how _this_ happened.

She’s horrified and sickened by what her brother is doing, what the _chovihano_ has turned him into.

Derek broke all pack traditions by claiming someone, by claiming someone that didn’t belong to him but to _her_ , his future Alpha. He crossed a line.

She had watched them together and laughed because finally Derek was associating with someone not pack, yet. It was good for him to learn how to deal with strangers. She had laughed at his complaints over Scott and imagined him telling her the same things about her cubs one day. She isn’t exactly sure when things became different, when _Derek_ became different. Laura had been busy with mother, learning about the alpha pack that hunted hunters throughout Europe and searching for a mate that would make her pack strong.

But her _chovihano_ was all he talked about anymore.

It’d been a rare sunny day, and she had been running alongside the caravan, curious about the human that would be hers. It was good Derek was getting along with their magic user. She used to fear he’d distrust her _chovihano_ merely because he was human. Derek had been walking by the _chovihano’s_ side, his eyes constantly trained on the boy in red. They’d been talking, their words odd and strange and _Romani_ , and it was good he was learning the language, Gods knew if they’d have need of the _Roma_ again. She had seen her brother hand her _chovihano_ the robin’s egg he had climbed five trees for the previous night and it was a little he odd he was making such an effort, but she pushed the incident from her mind, thinking it one strange occurrence.

But Derek kept giving her _chovihano_ gifts.

A rabbit’s foot, pine cones, tree sap, pebbles, a geode, straw, red string, feathers, a brass bell, colored glass, sea glass. An odd collection of items that Derek finds and works for. He hunted and killed two wild boars by himself for the coin to buy the red string and the bell. Watched Derek search the sea shore for the right piece of sea glass. He -- he put a lot of effort and thought into what he gave her _chovihano_. It worried her. Derek did not see her _chovihano_ like she did. He didn’t see the magic user hide every gift in his wagon with great care. He didn’t see how her _chovihano’s_ face changes from content to beaming, like Derek did something spectacular.

It takes her weeks of watching her brother and her _chovihano_ interacting to realize, Derek _was_ doing something spectacular. Her _chovihano_ was using Derek’s trinkets to cast magic and because Derek brought them to him, her _chovihano_ was using _Derek_ to cast his magic. It unsettles her and she brings it up to her mother and her mother’s shaman late at night when Derek and her _chovihano_ would not know.

“The _chovihano_ is harmless to Derek.” Mother says.

Laura makes a whine. How can her mother not see? Her _chovihano_ is using Derek to enhance his magic. They both belong to Laura and she loves them, but pack mates do not use each other like this. Not without permission. Not without _her_ permission.

“I assure you, Miss Laura, Stiles would not hurt Derek.” The shaman says. “Stiles cares greatly for your brother.”

And it’s how he says it, that rings in her ears oddly. This _chovihano_ cares about her brother? Why? Derek is many things but he isn’t Laura or a future alpha. Her _chovihano_ should only care greatly for her. She tries to reason with herself. A magic user is to serve the pack. Not just the alpha. It is good he cares about Derek. But still. Something in her is screaming, howling and growling, “He is using magic on Derek.” She doesn’t know that it was her thought until she says the words, but they ring true in her ears. “Controlling him, changing him.”

“Sweetheart,” Mother begins to reprimand, but no. Laura has figured out the source of her unease. “You know that’s not true.”

“Why else would my _chovihano_ pay Derek any mind?” Laura snaps. “If not to control him?”

The shaman says nothing. Drinks his tea and stares at a pile of bones resting on the little table in front of them all, thoughtful. She sneers at him and her mother sighs. It is little wonder magic users accept pack life so readily, they do not give each other’s secrets up.

“If you will not warn Derek, I will.”

She tries telling him, about how _chovihanos_ and shamans only need a small thing to use their craft, but he looks at her with hurt eyes. Her wolf gnashes inside and she turns her attention to the _chovihano_.

She will warn him away and she has her chance the day she sees him clutch a white stone with a hole in the center, eagerly searching for Derek. She stares at him and dares him to give her brother the token. He puts the white rock in his pocket, his eyes steady on hers and gold. He stares at her for a long time, like he’s seeing into her, through her, and smiles easy.

She hates the _chovihano_. He is a strange creature and he is ruining everything. She had a plan for her pack and he was ruining it all.

It all leads to this horrifying moment, when Derek smells like magic and musk and he’s gone from her. She can’t feel the bond that connected Alpha wolf to Beta wolf. She tears into the _Roma_ camp, intent on ripping the _chovihano’s_ throat out for daring to hurt her brother when she finds Derek, safe with gold marks on his skin. He’s staring at the _chovihano_ across the fire, as the magic user casts his cards like he does every night.

“What have you done?” She demands, feeling sick. “What did he do?” She always believed the _chovihano_ was casting magic on her brother and this was it the entire time. The damned _Roma_ had been stealing _Derek_ from her. She been a fool for thinking Derek would have ever dared to take what belonged to her. Derek was too nice, too loyal to take something he wanted. But the _chovihano’s_ eyes are focused on Laura, triumphant.

“Laura,” Mother attempts to soothe.

“What did he do?” She screams, ready to attack the _chovihano_. There are stories. If the magic user dies, the influence of their magic dies with them. She takes a step forward and Derek is in her way, holding her gaze with red eyes of his own.

“He chose me.” He tells her and she hears _I picked him over you_. “He chose _me_.”

She wolfs out and attacks him for his disloyalty.

 It is an explosion of fur as they both shift.

Derek is bigger than she, but she has more experience in this form. She gets her legs underneath her quickly and goes for the white and black wolf with intent to claim him back for hers, force him to submit to her. He surprises her when he shouldn’t when instead of going for her throat, he goes low for her legs. He snaps at her leg, surprising her into drawing back. She’s seen her brother fight before. In France, whenever they came upon the lunatics. Derek trained for the quick movements and grace that stumped the werewolves too intent on physical strength.

It makes them more evenly matched than she would like to admit.

Laura is a tawny wolf who was quick and clever. She never had the strength her cousins and younger brothers and sisters did, but she never needed it because she was smart enough to know how to defeat an opponent that relied solely on his strength. Laura was used to always filling her mouth with blood before her enemy could land a hit on her. Derek, much like her, had trained similarly.

“Fighting muscle against muscle will only work if I’m stronger than all of them.” Derek admitted once, after the night in France he’d been injured enough to need the Romani magic women to fix him up. “I can’t always be the strongest wolf.” His eyes had glinted with a stubborn blue. “But I can be the most surprising.”

Distantly, she can hear people, humans, shouting, but she keeps all her focus on her brother.

Derek’s fondness for acrobatics and twists shows in how he darts under her legs uses his shoulders to knock her off her legs. He’s on her in the barest of a second, snarling and biting her ear, tugging it and she forces her paws on his face, pushing him away. They end up on their hind legs, like two humans boxing, biting each others’ muzzles and ears, at the fur of the neck when their parents break into the fight.

Father grabs her by the neck, yanking her away and throwing her into a bush. She shifts back into her human skin with a whine, knowing she displeased her parents, her alphas, but she was only trying to get Derek back whereas they let the dirty Gypsy steal him from her, the pack.

She pulls herself from the ground and bushes and sees a sight she never expected to see.

Mother is livid. The _Roma_ smell afraid and are clustered together behind a wall made of their Elders, the _chovihano_ and shaman. Like they could stop a werewolf if she so chose to kill them. She flashes her red eyes at them, at the magic Gypsy in warning, and keeps her head high, despite being completely naked. She spots Derek by the _chovihano’s_ side and snarls at them, intent on killing them both for what they’ve done and has taken a step forward when her Alpha speaks.

“ _Laura_.” Mother growls. With a start, Laura realizes some of the _Romani_ men have their guns out and pointed at _her_. Never have they ever pointed a gun at any member of the pack. Much less Laura. She was their _friend_. She had taught some of the these men the best places to shoot a lunatic. “You would dare act on my behalf? Would dare threaten one of the _Roma’s_ leaders?”

The silent members of the pack that had gathered to watch the dominance battle and their alphas deal with a transgression are watching now, their eyes amber and waiting.

“Mother,” she begins, desperate to explain what the filthy _chovihano_ has done. “He stole Derek from us.”

_From me,_ she doesn’t say even if it was she means it. Once before, their pack bond had been strong, Derek a comforting presence in her mind and now he was _gone_. Taken from her and replaced by a timid spark where Derek had been a blaze of protection and loyalty. She couldn’t sense him at all, couldn’t sense her Beta like she always used to be able.

“Tell me Laura, have you decided who is pack and who isn’t now?” Mother says for all ears to hear. “Your brother is still in _my_ pack.” She says it so sharply that Laura cowers a little. “His ties to me have not been broken, and as it is still _my_ pack, Laura, those ties are the only ones that matter.”

Mother is fierce as she always is and grabs Laura firmly by the chin, forcing Laura to look into her mother’s angry red eyes. “So tell me, Laura Hale, do you challenge me for my pack?”

“No.” She whimpers.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. _It isn’t._ Derek is no longer her Beta then. Just another pack mate and she feels so alone.

Father finds her crying deep in the woods, away from the rest of the pack. Their father was a woodsman, calm and solid like the trees. He holds her as she buries her face into his shoulder, letting her shake her way through her grief and embarrassment before he begins to speak softly over her ragged breaths. “Alice’s eyes turned blue tonight. She will be your Beta, Fate permitting.” She chokes, feeling her stomach constrict. “Why did you attack him, Laura? Your brother has never wavered in his loyalty to our pack. He submitted to your mother as soon as she pulled him away from you. He isn’t a rogue. He’s _pack_.”

“He isn’t my Beta.” She says and it sounds young and childish in her ears. “He—he picked the Gypsy over me.”

“Do not call our friends by such a name.” Father reprimands quietly. “Derek followed the will of Fate and the _chovihano_ boy is one of Fate’s servants. Neither could resist.” Father is silent for a long moment before speaking again. “Perhaps instead of feeling cheated my little alpha, you should feel fortunate that Fate freed you from her plans.”

“What?” Laura asks, alarmed.

Father smiles grimly. “The music our cousins make is that of caution and danger, my little alpha. Already Fate is allowing you to turn away from a Path fraught with death and darkness, but she has set Derek upon it in return. Be glad daughter, that it will not be you acting as her vassal.”

He leaves her then, in the woods, her skin growing cold with the moisture from the air, the cusp of change panting down her neck.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn't really move the plot forward much, but someone asked me to write something from Laura's POV and when I got stuck writing the third Gypsy story, I turned my attention to this one and it got finished first... Think of it as an interlude and a tidbit to enjoy as I flesh out the next story.


End file.
